Tour de France Tour de France 2025, Stage 1: Lille – Lille (184.9k)

[Gigs_98]

It's crazy just how much everyones first thought about the first week this year is "just let the big gc players get through it unharmed"

 

[Rob5091]

Who'll get the first yellow card? Someone forgetting not to celebrate a teammates win, is my guess.
If Johnny Trek's train get it right, there'll be no stopping him.

 

[Rackham]

It's crazy just how much everyones first thought about the first week this year is "just let the big gc players get through it unharmed"

It's not actually. I'm just stating what I think will happen, not what I actually want to see happen.

Personally speaking I reckon the backloaded nature of this Tour is the only thing that'll keep people invested and entertained for longer than usual. Gaps will be smaller, the battle will be harder and surprises on the flat can happen.

Hautacam meanwhile is likely going to be that moment when lots of people just roll their eyes and lose interest. When the gap between the best climber versus the others is too big, then climbs are inherently anti-fun. It's just the way it is. There's no consistency or 'one size fits all' rule here, i.e. it's totally dependent on the respective strengths of the main contenders.

 

[Squire]

Although I prefer a prologue, I honestly don't mind a flat stage to open the race. It's a rare chance for sprinters to take yellow, and if you have to have so many sprint stages each year, I prefer one of them to be stage 1 since you're just psyched that the Tour is starting, and I actually think it's a beautiful way of getting the race started.

While I do prefer a prologue, it is indeed quite fun (and a bit nostalgic) watching sprinters wearing the yellow jersey. Unfortunately we won't see the jersey at the pointy end of stage 2 I think.

The mid-2000s Tour routes were obviously not perfect, but seeing the yellow jersey often change from one sprinter to the next during the first week was quite fun despite the flat sprint-fest. I miss the 20 second time bonuses. Also the occasional first week 20 minute breakaway made for a fun middle part of the race, seeing those guys slowly dwindle away from the GC standings. But with almost all teams being so strong and ambitious these days, those don't really happen anymore.

My main hope for stage 1 is no serious crashes.

 

[houtdffan]

Why not take GC times at 5km?
+ award bonus seconds at the finish line
+ add a "Roglic zone" from 10km to 5km (time freeze for crash/mech)

Everybody is safe and happy!

Better seeing GC favorites soft pedaling because they don't need to sprint instead of seeing them soft pedaling banged up and bloody.

you'll make the stages far more prone to crashes.

Crashes became more common once the UCI changed from a 1km to a 3km zone. All that did was result in longer flat out sprinting, putting riders in the red for longer, leading to more crashes.

See how few crashes there were when it was the 1km rule

 

[Boes]

Belgian horse wins a historic maillot jaune

Wout van Aert?

 

[Tim Cahill]

Who'll get the first yellow card? Someone forgetting not to celebrate a teammates win, is my guess.
If Johnny Trek's train get it right, there'll be no stopping him.

There's going to be some cracking yellows being dished out between Trek and Alpecin, wall to wall arseholes going head to head, maybe if we are really lucky we get a Mark Clattenburg style ref looking to make a name for himself dishing out the reds.

 

[SHAD0W93]

Milan first due to the superior train from Merlier coming from too far back. Only question is who will get Philipsen’d.

 

[Valv.Piti]

While I do prefer a prologue, it is indeed quite fun (and a bit nostalgic) watching sprinters wearing the yellow jersey. Unfortunately we won't see the jersey at the pointy end of stage 2 I think.

The mid-2000s Tour routes were obviously not perfect, but seeing the yellow jersey often change from one sprinter to the next during the first week was quite fun despite the flat sprint-fest. I miss the 20 second time bonuses. Also the occasional first week 20 minute breakaway made for a fun middle part of the race, seeing those guys slowly dwindle away from the GC standings. But with almost all teams being so strong and ambitious these days, those don't really happen anymore.

My main hope for stage 1 is no serious crashes.

Or sprinter stages after the first block of mountains - seemed to me like they just couldn't bother anymore and some random breakaways just sailed away again and again on very flat days until Paris. Nowadays these stages would just be controlled unless its after the second block of mountains where stuff can happen.

 

[Eagle_Alps]

you'll make the stages far more prone to crashes.

Crashes became more common once the UCI changed from a 1km to a 3km zone. All that did was result in longer flat out sprinting, putting riders in the red for longer, leading to more crashes.

See how few crashes there were when it was the 1km rule

Good point. I don't know about crash statistics.
But this is exactly the point. The current 3k rule is fatally flawed because it only applies in case of crash or mechanical. The GC guys have to be in front until the finish to avoid splits! So: take GC times 5k or 8k or whatever before the finish (before the sprint trains go full berserk), and let the GC guys sit up and make space for pure sprinters.
Or: allow huge splits on these flat stages ( 20? 30? Secs) to be given same GC times.

 

[houtdffan]

Good point. I don't know about crash statistics.
But this is exactly the point. The current 3k rule is fatally flawed because it only applies in case of crash or mechanical. The GC guys have to be in front until the finish to avoid splits! So: take GC times 5k or 8k or whatever before the finish (before the sprint trains go full berserk), and let the GC guys sit up and make space for pure sprinters.
Or: allow huge splits on these flat stages ( 20? 30? Secs) to be given same GC times.

The issue is 3km is too far from the finish. You go to 5-10 km, youll have flat out sprint trains from then.

Youll have multiple pileups each day as riders will be spending 5-10 mins in the red zone

 

[Netserk]

Or: allow huge splits on these flat stages ( 20? 30? Secs) to be given same GC times.

Current rules are enough to allow GC riders to take it easy.

 

[Berflamand]

Early wind forecasts predict quite a lot of wind and the direction seems perfect for a whole day of cross/cross-tailwind except for the first 50km.

Are there enough open roads to actually have a realistic chance of splits/echelons or will it only make the stage even more nervous?

 

[tobydawq]

Current rules are enough to allow GC riders to take it easy.

But not enough to make them realise that it's actually enough.

Although, Red Bull actually seemed to understand that in the Giro, which hopefully can spread to other GC teams.

 

[Zoetemelk-fan]

Credits to the Devil.

Likely a GC crash day.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Early wind forecasts predict quite a lot of wind and the direction seems perfect for a whole day of cross/cross-tailwind except for the first 50km.

Are there enough open roads to actually have a realistic chance of splits/echelons or will it only make the stage even more nervous?

This corner of France is relatively densely populated in its rural areas, so the best you get is two-kilometre sections that are completely exposed or five-kilometre sections that get interrupted by a line of houses for 500 metres and then two big farms for 200 metres each. And even of those, there aren't that many.

Stage 3 is a bit better, but even there they're taking the least exposed of the routes from Mont Cassel to Dunkerque (the French side of De Moeren was right there...).

 

[Ulle97]

I know this Tour route is backloaded with the heavy mountain stages in the second half but the first week will be anything but boring.
We have so many hilly finishes with small climbs that will actually provide opportunities to attack.
Pogacar and Van der Poel will be licking their lips. Then we have a decent length 33km time trial on stage five for Remco to pull back some seconds that he will lose to Pog on the hill top finishes.
These hill top finishes are staples of the Giro and Vuelta but the Tour has really increased this element in their routes recently.

I see the stage to Boulogne sur Mer, Rouen, Vire Normandie and Mur de Bretagne causing problems.

Does anybody think that Pogacar could take up to 1minute + in total on these four stages if we include time bonuses???

 

[Squire]

Or sprinter stages after the first block of mountains - seemed to me like they just couldn't bother anymore and some random breakaways just sailed away again and again on very flat days until Paris. Nowadays these stages would just be controlled unless its after the second block of mountains where stuff can happen.

I think some reasons were that some of those stages were a little bit hilly at least, and the sprinters of those days (bar Zabel, but he never had his team really control stages for him anyway) were usually extremely non-durable for stuff like that (McEwen f.ex.). Also the average domestiques of the sprinters were much further from the level of the domestiques nowadays, so if the breakaway had some strong barodeurs it was a lot of work. Add to that that the stages where the sprinters couldn't be bothered were often long or very hot.

 

[Peyroteo94]

After hearing about our portuguese talent's death (Diogo Jota), I no longer fear for this stage since I believe even if somehow a GC rider loses the race because of crashing, there is still a life to live after the race.

 

[Rackham]

I'm now seeing light rain predicted in Lille on Saturday afternoon.

 

[Bavarianrider]

Everybody knows this will end in a massice crash.

 

[Potomac]

No chance for the break, right? I mean the pure sprinters will be so effing jazzed for a chance to wear yellow that they will make sure the break is caught. Maybe a poll on how many km remain when the break is caught would work.

 

[Berniece]

No chance for the break, right? I mean the pure sprinters will be so effing jazzed for a chance to wear yellow that they will make sure the break is caught. Maybe a poll on how many km remain when the break is caught would work.

No chance at all, break will be caught with 30-40km's to go. Let them get those last KOM points, and reel them back in.

 

[Rob5091]

Yep, the peloton should wrap up the break just after the last cat 4 so who will be in the KOM jersey after stage 1? Decathlon have their HQ nearby so maybe they'll try or perhaps a Norwegian.

 

[Berniece]

Some recon pictures

Spoiler: SOQ

Spoiler: Visma